The following letter appeared yesterday on the Miami Herald's internal memo board, Readme, and was signed by several veteran reporters and editors.

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\16 Sept 2010OUR HOPES FOR A BETTER HERALD:

So, it's Saturday night, and you want to hear live music. Among your choices: going to the Hard Rock Cafe to hear Shakira (or Seal or Ringo Starr or Reba McIntyre); or going to a bar with an open mike. At the Hard Rock, you'll hear a polished, professional artist. At open mike night, you'll probably hear people with day jobs singing Sweet Caroline ... perhaps lustily, probably off key.

Nothing intrinsically wrong with that open mike bar. But we'll bet most people, with the ability to choose, would go hear the pro.

The Miami Herald, we would argue, is becoming the newspaper equivalent of open mike night. Or a flea market.

Last month, a very serious story about a 15-year-old girl and her mother ... both killed by the teen's older boyfriend ... included a quote by someone named "îlagordita.'' The quote ... "There was absolutely nothing good that could have possibly come from this relationship'' ... did not add any particular insight to the story. It was added, at the suggestion of an editor ... in an effort to show the story was generating interest online. But including the quote in the final story meant leaving out quotes from people who were close to the tragedy.

On Sunday, we devoted the week's most desirable newspaper real estate to a series of tweets from our readers about 9/11. We know almost nothing about these people. The names could be real, but maybe not. It doesn't really matter in Twitter world. So, in a story that begins on the top of our front page, we have 'geomens' and 'Karl B Gordon Geck' and 'Neko-do' and 'Miami Herald user' and 'Afro-Cheez' offering such trenchant and profound observations as: 'I was

sleeping,' and 'In my car... Coming home from the gym,' and 'Standing at my kitchen sink.'

Is there any reason why our dwindling pool of readers would care about any of this?

Judging from recent letters to the editor, we think not.

Yesterday, Russ Adkins of Plantation chided the Herald for placing a jeremiad by Pat Riley above the fold on the front page Saturday. "Surely,'' Mr. Adkins wrote, "the paper could have led with something more newsworthy than the Miami Heat's president reacting to comments from Charles Barkley and others.''

The Herald has a proud tradition of playing arts and sports on its front page, but there was always a threshold: They should rise to the level of 1A stories.

Earlier this summer, we printed several letters from readers who said ... one verbatim ... "enough is enough'' with the front-page obsession over where LeBron James lives, eats, socializes and is seen. We are told such sentiments have become commonplace in the Letters to the Editor basket.

A glance at other front pages on the Newsmuseum's website shows that while papers are displaying more sports and leisure, they're still striving to provide smart and meaningful stories.

When news arrived about the death of Edward Kennedy and the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, we chose to run shallow "forward-thinking'' stories about their passing rather than give our readers the impact ... bad or good ... they had on the nation. Even as reading habits are changing, people still want to read those stories.

But perhaps most disturbing, on Tuesday we allowed an anonymous poster, "unhappyatjackson,'' to suggest that one Jackson employee "needs to be fired'' while another, Marvin O'Quinn, "needs to go to jail.'' When did the Herald decide it was appropriate to allow people to attack others ... perhaps libel them ... in print, and anonymously?

We're hoping to start a discussion about the quality of our front page, and the newspaper in general, by being blunt: We barely recognize it these days. Local news does not have to be shallow and cheesy. The readers who still buy our product aren't buying it because they care what 'Gordon Geck' has to say. They buy it because they can read about what their city and county governments are doing in thoughtful prose by Matt and Martha, and Chuck; because they want to know something about the lives of their neighbors in obits by Ellie; because they care deeply about their children's schools; because they want David Smiley to tell them about the happenings at Miami Beach City Hall in a lively tone; because they can find out about their relatives' welfare in Haiti from Jacqueline Charles; and because they can't put down those features by Audra and Robert Samuels.

Most of us read, and greatly value, sports coverage and lifestyle features. Some of us seek out those sections before looking elsewhere. But we question, as one of our readers did in a recent letter: If routine sports stories belong on the front page, where do news stories of significance belong? The reader suggested we print them in sports.

Attempting to mimick Twitter or the Sun-Sentinel, we would argue, is a mistake. The Sentinel, with its endless lists and tip-sheets, is doing no better than we are, and has badly depleted what journalistic dignity it once had.

We understand that this is a time of profound change and uncertainty. We only add to that uncertainty when our product appears to have no tether, no anchor. At times, it seems as if we are just throwing things at the wall, hoping something will stick. As one of our colleagues said recently: if that is the plan, why not try throwing out some serious, thoughtful, hard-hitting journalism?

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We wish to make clear at the outset that we are not, in any way, attacking our colleagues, whose work and dedication we value. The direction this paper is taking has been dictated at the highest levels. Of course, we respect the authority of management to make vital decisions on the paper's content and direction.

We simply want a place at the table, because we, too, care deeply about The Miami Herald.